Pensioner dismembered at his home sought police help the day before his murder


Graham Snell, pictured, visited police the day before his murder to complain about Daniel Walsh, who had moved in to his home in Chesterfield, Derbyshire without permission

A killer who spent days dismembering a pensioner’s body ‘took himself away from the horrors’ to visit a massage parlour and go drinking with friends, a court heard.

Hours before his death Graham Snell went to police to complain that Daniel Walsh had moved himself into his terraced house and was stealing money from his online bank account.

Walsh, 30, had tormented Mr Snell for a decade having served a jail sentence in 2009 for stealing £5,000 from him.

He had also been convicted in 2014 of assaulting Mr Snell, but despite that police sent him home saying they would call around the following day. 

Derby Crown Court heard that Mr Snell, 71, had been murdered by the time an officer called around to his house in Chesterfield.   

After the killing Walsh twice bought cocaine from a local dealer then visited a DIY store to purchase two saws and black plastic bags. 

The prosecution claims that Walsh went on a spending spree with Mr Snell’s money. 

Over the following 48 hours he used the tools to dismember Mr Snell’s corpse into ten separate pieces. He then placed the body parts into bags and spent several days dumping them across the town. 

After finishing dismembering the body, Walsh caught a train to Sheffield and spent an afternoon at a massage parlour before returning for a night out with two friends.

Walsh, of Chesterfield, Derbyshire, denies the murder of Mr Snell, but he has previously admitted chopping up his body and scattering the remains in several locations around the town.

Mr Snell was reported missing on June 30 last year, 11 days after he was last seen in Chesterfield town centre when he called at the police station.

The jury at Derby Crown Court were told detectives eventually launched a murder hunt and spent weeks searching for Mr Snell’s missing body parts.

Some were found in early July near the property and at a site two miles away, while his head, arms and hands lay undiscovered until last month.

Peter Joyce QC, prosecuting, said Mr Snell, who was described by detectives as as a ‘well-known and well liked’ man, went to the police station just after midday on June 19.

He told an officer ‘I’m having a problem with a man who comes and stays at my house without being invited. I’ve just found out he’s been taking money out of my Halifax online account.’

He gave police Walsh’s name and date of birth and added: ‘Please can I see an officer?’

Prosecutors claim Walsh murdered Mr Snell and then travelled to Sheffield to spend an afternoon in Club Paradise

Prosecutors claim Walsh murdered Mr Snell and then travelled to Sheffield to spend an afternoon in Club Paradise 

Police called to Mr Snell's house in Chesterfield, pictured, the day after he reported his problems with Walsh. Prosecutors claim Walsh had already murdered the 71-year-old pensioner and was about to begin dismembering his body

Police called to Mr Snell’s house in Chesterfield, pictured, the day after he reported his problems with Walsh. Prosecutors claim Walsh had already murdered the 71-year-old pensioner and was about to begin dismembering his body

Mr Joyce said: ‘Walsh had been staying at his house and had been stealing from his bank account.’

The jury was told that an appointment was made for an officer to visit Mr Snell’s home at 9.30am the following day.

‘By that time Graham Snell was dead and it’s the prosecution’s case that he had been killed by Walsh,’ said Mr Joyce. No one answered the door.

Mr Joyce told the jury that in the time between the pensioner’s visit to the police and the officer arriving at the address Walsh had ‘twice bought and had cocaine’.

Just over an hour after the police officer left the address Walsh was caught on CCTV walking out of the property and going to Wickes where he bought two saws and and rubble sacks.

‘He wanted the saws to cut through the dead body of Mr Snell and the sacks to put parts of his body in so he could carry them away to hide’, said Mr Joyce.

Over a two day period Walsh made repeated trips to DIY stores around Chesterfield, at one point buying an incinerator and a heavy duty black bin to dispose of the evidence.

Walsh cut up Mr Snell’s body on the kitchen floor at the property, said Mr Joyce. He also changed the passwords on his bank account so he could access his money .

On June 21 he used the incinerator in the yard of Mr Snell’s home to burn the items he had used to dismember the body.

A neighbour took a photograph of the incinerator releasing smoke into her back garden. The jury were told that DNA evidence recovered from the incinerator was linked to Mr Snell. 

Mr Joyce, prosecuting told the jury that Walsh ‘took himself away from the horrors in that house’. 

That night having spent two days cutting up Mr Snell’s corpse, Walsh took a cab half mile from the house to Chesterfield railway station where he caught a train to Sheffield.

‘Where did he go?’ said Mr Joyce. ‘He took himself away from the horrors in that house and went to the Paradise Massage Parlour.

‘Later that day he came back from Chesterfield and went out on the town with two friends until the early hours.’

On June 23, Walsh travelled to Birmingham and planned to go to the airport. On route he tried to arrange an emergency passport, said Mr Joyce.

Mr Joyce said Walsh was interested in obtaining a passport ‘because back at the house was the body of Graham Snell which by this time had been cut into 10 different pieces and placed in different bags.

Having failed to get a passport the alleged killer returned to the scene of his crime and the next day began to dispose of the body parts. On one occasion he stuffed limbs into a bin and ordered a taxi to take him to another address in the town.

Some parts were recovered a few weeks after Mr Snell’s death, but it was not until last month further searches led to the recovery of the head and the arms and hands.

Mr Joyce said up until that point Walsh had refused to accept that Mr Snell was dead, claiming he had last seen him alive at a hospital in Sheffield on June 28.

‘He knew he had been dead for over a week by then. He had been cut up and dismembered by the 21st, and his body parts disposed of by the 28th,’ he added.

The court heard that the pensioner’s torso was cut into three parts and that saw marks found on the thigh bone matched the teeth of one of the saws bought from Wickes.

Parts of Mr Snell’s body were found in a badger’s sett and in a communal bin at the flats complex Walsh’s brother lived at in Chesterfield. Months later his head and arms were discovered in a wood near the badger’s den.

After disposing of all the body parts Walsh celebrated by visiting casinos in Sheffield and arcades in Matlock Bath where ‘he spent very considerable amounts of money,’ said Mr Joyce.

‘The money was money that he had managed to obtain after his death from Graham Snell’s accounts.’

He sold electrical items from the murder house and went to a local library to use a their computer to access the pensioner’s life savings.

‘If Graham Snell had died naturally and not at the hands of Daniel Walsh, why would he cut him up and go to such lengths to hide the various body parts?’ asked Mr Joyce.

‘The truth is obvious. He was murdered by Daniel Walsh, he killed him and he cut him up and he bagged him up, sought a passport, got full access to his bank accounts and went on a spending spree. He killed him for money’

The trial continues.